The invention relates generally to automatic data collection (ADC) devices and more particularly to communication protocols providing remote access to a network of such devices.
Automatic data collection (ADC) device platforms, such as hand-held devices equipped with bar code readers, have received increasing commercial attention in the past few years. ADC device platforms, such as hand-held data collection terminals, or hand-held personal computers, have been widely implemented in the retail marketplace and have garnered increasing utilization in a diverse range of application areas. The ever-decreasing cost and size of ADC device platforms has facilitated their entry into a wide variety of commercial, institutional, and governmental settings.
A hand-held device having a bar code reader adeptly accesses and retrieves data stored in the form of a bar code label. Data representing virtually any product or service found in the marketplace may be encoded in a bar code label for later access by a hand-held device having a bar code reader. For these reasons, hand-held devices are now actively used for planning, controlling, producing, and analyzing most aspects of commerce. Bar code readers include laser scanners as well as other means of collecting product information, such as a bar code wand, still camera or area imager. In addition to bar code labels, other ADC data formats include radio frequency (xe2x80x9cRFxe2x80x9d) tags, magnetic strips, optical character recognition (xe2x80x9cOCRxe2x80x9d), speech input, and any symbol having encoded data therein.
In a conventional ADC device platform environment, the recipient of ADC data either physically manipulates the ADC device platform itself to retrieve the ADC data or receives the ADC data through a local, and probably proprietary, network. Thus, a typical ADC device operator is limited both in terms of the distance from which the operator may be located away from the actual device and by the complexity and versatility of the components that comprise the ADC device network which the operator utilizes. The operator suffers from still further limitations due to the fact that many conventional ADC device platforms are not readily configurable for new ADC devices, or even for ADC devices other than those attached to the ADC device platform when it is initially sold. Yet another limitation in a conventional ADC device platform arises when an operator wishes to add a new ADC device to one of the few ADC device platforms that will accept new ADC devices. This limitation stems from the fact that many ADC devices operate using proprietary communications protocols, and even when the communications protocols are non-proprietary, the communications protocols are typically non-standard. Thus, the operator cannot simply attach a new ADC device to an existing ADC device platform and expect that the new combination will function properly. The operator typically must either return the device to the manufacturer for re-fitting with the new ADC device or request that a service representative of the new ADC device""s manufacturer visit the operator""s location and perform the installation on site.
The invention provides a method and system for remotely controlling the operations of a plurality of networked Automatic Data Collection (ADC) device platforms. Each ADC device platform in the plurality of networked ADC device platforms contains an ADC device server. The ADC device server connects to a communications network that may be remotely accessed by an ADC device operator. The remote ADC device operator sends commands for controlling the ADC device over the communications network and through the server to the ADC device. Commands passing over the communications network to the ADC data server may arrive at the ADC device platform in a communications format different from the format required by the ADC devices connected to the ADC device platform. Various subsystems on the ADC device platform translate information passing within the ADC device platform as well as the external connections.
Embodiments of the invention provide a system for controlling a plurality of hand-held devices having at least one ADC reader. A Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server on the hand-held device receives document queries from a web browser on a remote computing system and sends Hypertext Mark-Up Language (HTML) documents, Dynamic Hypertext Mark-Up Language (DHTML) documents, Exstensible Mark Up Language (XML) documents, and/or documents in other data formats to the remote computing system over the World Wide Web. The remote computing system uses the HTML documents, DHTML documents, and/or XML documents to control the hand-held device. In each hand-held device of the plurality of hand-held devices, a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) master agent communicates with the remote computing system. An SNMP subagent translates SNMP-formatted information sent from the SNMP master agent to the ADC reader into a format suitable for reception by the ADC reader. The SNMP subagent translates data received from the ADC reader into the SNMP format for transmission to the remote computing system.